I have so often had occasion to compare the State of the Stage to the State of a Nation, that I yet feel a Reluctancy to drop the Comparison, or speak of the one without some Application to the other. How many Reigns, then, do I remember, from that of Charles the Second, through all which there has been, from one half of the People or the other, a Succession of Clamour against every different Ministry for the time being? And yet, let the Cause of this Clamour have been never so well grounded, it is impossible but that some of those Ministers must have been wiser and honester Men than others: If this be true, as true I believe it is, why may I not then say, as some Fool in a French Play does upon a like Occasion—Justement, comme chez nous! 'Twas exactly the same with our Menagement! let us have done never so well, we could not please every body: All I can say in our Defence is, that though many good Judges might possibly conceive how the State of the Stage might have been mended, yet the best of them never pretended to remember the Time when it was better! or could shew us the way to make their imaginary Amendments practicable.
For though I have often allow'd that our best Merit as Actors was never equal to that of our Predecessors, yet I will venture to say, that in all its Branches the Stage had never been under so just, so prosperous, and so settled a Regulation, for forty Years before, as it was at the Time I am speaking of. The most plausible Objection to our Administration seemed to be, that we took no Care to breed up young Actors to succeed us;[164] and this was imputed as the greater Fault, because it was taken for granted that it was a Matter as easy as planting so many Cabbages: Now, might not a Court as well be reproached for not breeding up a Succession of complete Ministers? And yet it is evident, that if Providence or Nature don't supply us with both, the State and the Stage will be but poorly supported. If a Man of an ample Fortune should take it into his Head to give a younger Son an extraordinary Allowance in order to breed him a great Poet, what might we suppose would be the Odds that his Trouble and Money would be all thrown away? Not more than it would be against the Master of a Theatre who should say, this or that young Man I will take care shall be an excellent Actor! Let it be our Excuse, then, for that mistaken Charge against us; that since there was no Garden or Market where accomplished Actors grew or were to be sold, we could only pick them up, as we do Pebbles of Value, by Chance: We may polish a thousand before we can find one fit to make a Figure in the Lid of a Snuff-Box. And how few soever we were able to produce, it is no Proof that we were not always in search of them: Yet, at worst, it was allow'd that our Deficiency of Men Actors was not so visible as our Scarcity of tolerable Women: But when it is consider'd, that the Life of Youth and Beauty is too short for the bringing an Actress to her Perfection; were I to mention, too, the many frail fair Ones I remember who, before they could arrive to their Theatrical Maturity, were feloniously stolen from the Tree, it would rather be thought our Misfortune than our Fault that we were not better provided.[165]
Even the Laws of a Nunnery, we find, are thought no sufficient Security against Temptations without Iron Grates and high Walls to inforce them; which the Architecture of a Theatre will not so properly admit of: And yet, methinks, Beauty that has not those artificial Fortresses about it, that has no Defence but its natural Virtue (which upon the Stage has more than once been met with) makes a much more meritorious Figure in Life than that immur'd Virtue which could never be try'd. But alas! as the poor Stage is but the Show-glass to a Toy-shop, we must not wonder if now and then some of the Bawbles should find a Purchaser.
SUSANNA MARIA CIBBER.
However, as to say more or less than Truth are equally unfaithful in an Historian, I cannot but own that, in the Government of the Theatre, I have known many Instances where the Merit of promising Actors has not always been brought forward, with the Regard or Favour it had a Claim to: And if I put my Reader in mind, that in the early Part of this Work I have shewn thro' what continued Difficulties and Discouragements I myself made my way up the Hill of Preferment, he may justly call it too strong a Glare of my Vanity: I am afraid he is in the right; but I pretend not to be one of those chaste Authors that know how to write without it: When Truth is to be told, it may be as much Chance as Choice if it happens to turn out in my Favour: But to shew that this was true of others as well as myself, Booth shall be another Instance. In 1707, when Swiney was the only Master of the Company in the Hay-Market; Wilks, tho' he was then but an hired Actor himself, rather chose to govern and give Orders than to receive them; and was so jealous of Booth's rising, that with a high Hand he gave the Part of Pierre, in Venice Preserv'd, to Mills the elder, who (not to undervalue him) was out of Sight in the Pretensions that Booth, then young as he was, had to the same Part:[166] and this very Discouragement so strongly affected him, that not long after, when several of us became Sharers with Swiney, Booth rather chose to risque his Fortune with the old Patentee in Drury-Lane, than come into our Interest, where he saw he was like to meet with more of those Partialities.[167] And yet, again, Booth himself, when he came to be a Menager, would sometimes suffer his Judgment to be blinded by his Inclination to Actors whom the Town seem'd to have but an indifferent Opinion of. This again inclines me to ask another of my odd Questions, viz. Have we never seen the same passions govern a Court! How many white Staffs and great Places do we find, in our Histories, have been laid at the Feet of a Monarch, because they chose not to give way to a Rival in Power, or hold a second Place in his Favour? How many Whigs and Tories have chang'd their Parties, when their good or bad Pretensions have met with a Check to their higher Preferment?
Thus we see, let the Degrees and Rank of Men be ever so unequal, Nature throws out their Passions from the same Motives; 'tis not the Eminence or Lowliness of either that makes the one, when provok'd, more or less a reasonable Creature than the other: The Courtier and the Comedian, when their Ambition is out of Humour, take just the same Measures to right themselves.